Strong Woman
I met this middle aged Japanese lady back in the 2007 at Bali Fashion Week. It was a short conversation but it was also a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
She was a professional photographer. She dragged a trolley bag full of those big, long, and heavy lenses everywhere. With such a small body and one leg troubled, I couldn’t helped but wondered, where did her strength came from.
Fashion week is always a battlefield for every fashion reporters and especially fashion photographers and videographers. Not only to mention the super tight schedules, but also the efforts that should be given in such events. The perfect spot determines all. To take one single perfect picture within miliseconds is never a simple job.
One model will only walk approximately 30 – 45 seconds facing us, pose for approximately 3-5 seconds on each pose before they turn around and that’s practically the end of the clicks. So, yes. Perfect spot and perfect high is priceless.
The official photographers will always be in the centre and get the best spot. The rest of us will try our best to be as close as we could to the official one. Me and this lady, somehow, always sat right beside the official photographers’s team and Fashion TV’s crews. That made us have enough time to chit chat while preparing our gears.
She made us all laugh almost all the time. Everyone gave some helps to her and the official photographer even said, “the seat next to mine is occupied by her.” It was such a heart warming experience, and again I couldn’t helped to wonder, where did she get all those happy and positive attitude. So I asked her to spend some time with me, sitting in a a cafe near the beach between the show preparations.
I asked her many questions. Where did she get all those strength. Those positive vibes. Why did she choose to keep doing what she did? Travelling around the world with such a condition, difficulties, and age? How did she see live those days? How did she live her life?
“I live my life once every moment. I embrace this moment we have now. When I sit in front of you, my focus is you, talking to you, embracing this moment. I don’t think about what will happen later or what has happened yesterday. Every feelings that I felt, I felt them wholeheartedly.
I’m a Japanese. We are taught to survive in any conditions. We are fighters and survivors. Most of us don’t have the priviledge of having maids to help us. So, will I become a rotten lady and become a burden to everyone? Of course not. No one should ever live a helpless life and feel useless.
I don’t feel ashamed of my physical disability. People are even nicer to me because of this condition. They showed me how kindhearted human being could be. Like you, just now, helping me with my trolley bag all along the way. And this is how I repay their kindness, by living my life as best as I could. This is how I repay your kindness, inspiring you. My physical disability is not a weakness. It is a bless. I can see the world in a very different point of view compared to most people.
I travel around the world to repay people’s kindness with what I could do. I came to Bali to support Ika’s (the initiator of the events and also a well known International and Indonesian designer that based in Hong Kong) event. We have histories and that’s what friends do. I wasn’t supposed to tell you this, but Ika herself has asked me to pay special attention and keep an eye on you and your designs. She put hopes on you and she is that kind of lady. A nice one.
I see life as a treasure box filled with many pictures that portrayed beautifully. When someone cries, you could picture her tears, her back, her face, the way she sits, the way she cries, and so on. You are the photographer. You decide what kind of emotion and story that you want to keep from that very single moment. That’s how I see my life. I portrayed each of my moments beautifully.
How do you see your life?”
I didn’t answered her back then, and I knew she didn’t really want my answer either. It was more to a request to contemplate, that she gave me.
It was only an hour and a half, yet it last much longer than many conversations that I ever had. I remember she seemed already knew that I was going to ask difficult questions. She laughed and said, “I think this will be a lifetime moment.” and she was right. She passed away few years ago.
A small lady with bigger and warmer heart than most people I’ve ever met, balls bigger than most men that I ever met, and a lifetime inspiration.
Human being could be so courageous, strong, and mezmerizing at once.